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I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: 11to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” –– Luke 2:10b
“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” –– James 1:17
Did it come to pass? Did you get it? Did you innocently pick up the box, fruitlessly attempt to remove the wrapping paper without ripping it, dig through the packing peanuts, and find your hands wrapped around the item you did not know you even wanted and still don’t? Obviously, somebody had been flipping through the Sharper Image catalogue. Perhaps you spent Christmas afternoon periodically returning to the microwave to re-warm your new “World’s First Professional LED Lip Therapy Device;” or, perhaps were you charging your “Wrinkle Reducing Neck Therapy Device”; but then, it could be that you were reading the instructions for your “Ultimate Fat Freezer,” learning all about how “cold lipolysis technology” helps to dissolve fat cell deposits.
It has been said that Christmas is a time when we obligingly buy gifts that nobody needs for people we may not even like. Undeniably, the economic stimulus of another frenetic retail Christmas does provide sustenance for the workforce, but when your Yuletide journey is tyrannized by the stress of scrambling to get through the list of gift obligations, you may forget that immeasurable gift found in the “good news of great joy for all the people.”
Now, let me confess that I have often been guilty of returning or exchanging gifts that may not have “twanged my buds,” and may have justifiably earned a bit of a reputation within the family system. However, as the wrappings are tossed into the recycle bin, we still have the opportunity and obligation to live into that greatest gift “born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” Perhaps this gift is best understood not as a poignant memory of a story long cherished, but as a calling to live the gift as bearers of self-giving love, for it is in our stewardship of Christ’s self-giving love that we in profound and subtle ways encounter Christ face-to-face.
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